His main challenger is centre-left leader Walter Veltroni, who portrays himself as a man of change but his promises to make modest tax cuts and get tough on crime are similar to the pledges made by the conservative 71-year-old billionaire.

Many of Italy?s 47 million voters are gloomy about the prospects for economic recovery and political stability as they select their 62nd government since World War Two, especially as election laws make it hard for anyone to win a clear majority.

?I don?t care who wins. I just want a government that lasts,? said 54-year-old teacher Francesco Antonazzi, voting in Rome when booths opened at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT). They shut at 3 p.m. on today and the result could be clear a few hours later.

The centre-left government led by Roman Prodi lasted just 20 months before bickering between members of the coalition forced him to resign as prime minister in January and call an election.

Berlusconi is the only man in 50 years to have lasted a full term as prime minister, from 2001 to 2006. Now leader of the centre-right People of Freedom (PDL) party, he consistently led opinion polls in the campaign by six to nine percentage points.

Veltroni, the 52-year-old Democratic Party leader and a former Rome mayor, hoped to win over voters by adopting the ?Yes we can? slogan of US presidential hopeful Barack Obama. But many Italians show little faith in their politicians.

?I have faith in the Democratic Party but I don?t think the next government is going to last more than the last one,? said 63-year-old Ruggero Bianchi, among the early voters streaming into a Rome polling station.

Photo finish?

Italy?s morale has been battered by the struggle to find a buyer for loss-making airline Alitalia, a garbage crisis in Naples, a health scare over mozzarella cheese and gloomy news for the fourth largest economy in the European Union.

The International Monetary Fund sees just 0.3 percent growth this year for Italy, which has long lagged behind its partners in the euro zone and has the third highest public debt in the world in absolute terms.

Up to one third of the electorate was expected to decide who to vote for at the last minute and many voters have complained there is little to choose between the rival platforms.

The flamboyant Berlusconi and his low-key adversary both promise modest tax cuts aimed at spurring consumption. They have also both said Italy needs more police to tackle crime.

But the winner?s ability to carry out reforms to avert a looming recession could be hampered by a complex election law ? introduced by Berlusconi?s last government ? that makes it hard to win a clear majority in the upper house of parliament.

The 2006 election which Berlusconi lost to Prodi was the closest in modern Italian history. A narrow margin this time might force the winner into a deal with smaller parties ? the communist/green Rainbow Left, centrist Union of Christian Democrats or hard-right La Destra.

Both candidates have denied they would form a ?Grand Coalition? to reform voting rules and create a two-party system.

For the first time, voters had to leave mobile phones outside booths to avoid fraud involving photos of votes cast.

In a country with more mobile phones than people, according to one recent study, some voters pulled two or three from their pockets and bags, protesting they were not camera phones.

Stephen BROWN and Silvia ALOISI

?ITALY?S OBAMA? VELTRONI

■ The name of Walter Veltroni?s Democratic Party is not the only thing he has borrowed from US politics. The man who hopes to win Italy?s general election has also based his own style on presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

?Si puo fare? ? a translation of Obama?s ?Yes we can!? ? is the campaign slogan of the candidate. Behind in the polls, in the final throes of the campaign, Veltroni even borrowed one of Obama?s most famous supporters, actor George Clooney, who lent the bookish former Rome mayor some much-needed glamour.